Revisiting the (Lost) Art of Ideal-Typing in Public Administration

Stout, Margaret

doi:10.2753/atp1084-1806320401

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Nevertheless, examining these ideal-types separately can highlight various aspects of public service practice that might otherwise remain obscure. As Margaret Stout (2010) argues, ideal-type classification frameworks "are valuable in linking individual value systems to specific administrative functions, organizational missions, or job classifications" (p. 498). Accordingly, the aim here is to sketch out the main features of these four ideal-type administrative roles as a way of understanding the role that values play in governing the attitudes, skills, and behaviors associated with each.…”

Section: Four Ideal-types: Mediators Magistrates Stewards and Advomentioning

confidence: 98%

The Virtues of Administration: Values and the Practice of Public Service

Molina

2015

Administrative Theory & Praxis

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This article explores the role that public service values play in the work of public administrators. The argument made here is that a virtue ethics approach rooted in the concept of a practice is a particularly helpful way of understanding public service values as a contextualized set of attitudes, skills, and behaviors that enable us to realize the goods, ends, and standards of excellence internal to the practice of public administration. Along those lines, the contextual factors associated with four ideal-type administrative roles-mediator, steward, magistrate, and advocate-are explored in order to highlight the manner in which values both create and mediate conflicts that arise between these roles.Over the past couple of decades, scholars, practitioners, and educators have paid an increasing amount of attention to the role that values play in the practice of public administration (e.g.,

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Section: Four Ideal-types: Mediators Magistrates Stewards and Advomentioning

confidence: 98%

The Virtues of Administration: Values and the Practice of Public Service

Molina

2015

Administrative Theory & Praxis

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“…On the theoretical level, we treat performance regimes as ideal types. Ideal types are theoretical constructs that describe how specific actors, institutions, and behaviors relate to each other in an internally consistent way based on a given rationale (Stout, 2010). The EA regime and the doctrine of performance management make up an ideal type as they prescribe a specific institutional setting featuring motivational and informational assumptions that predict a positive performance effect.…”

Section: The Building Blocks Of An Alternativementioning

confidence: 99%

Making Sense of Performance Regimes: Rebalancing External Accountability and Internal Learning

Jakobsen

Bækgaard

Moynihan

et al. 2017

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

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“…To confront these belief systems and the manner in which they affect workplace policies, the authors shift the conversation about this issue away from specific tenets and empirical evidence to beliefs stemming from all types of ontological assumptions. To do so, an ideal-type methodology will be employed (Stout, 2010a;Weber, 1949Weber, , 1994 that incorporates both types of beliefs simultaneously in the concept of ontology. This model will then be used to analyze workplace policies and their career and social costs to women.…”

Section: The Workplace/spirituality Nexusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reframing Workplace Spirituality to Reduce Career and Social Costs to Women

2015

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Women tend to sacrifice career, family life, or both in ways men do not. Studies have shown repeatedly that these career and social costs are higher for women than men. This article argues that career and social costs only exist because workplace policies and practices are based on values that are grounded in beliefs derived from scientific, religious, and spiritual sources. The authors employ three ontological ideal-types to examine workplace policies that affect men and women differently. The analysis considers how different ontological assumptions might lead to more socially equitable policies and outcomes. Characteristics associated with one type in particular may lead to more desirable workplace policies than the others. Therefore, when scholars generically promote "workplace spirituality" in an effort to generate more desirable individual and workplace outcomes, it is important to be specific about which particular beliefs are being promoted and which are being left out.Workplace spirituality is a broad umbrella that includes the role of spirituality in the workplace, particularly with regard to the legal implications for public expression of beliefs, organizational performance, ethical behavior patterns, decision-making, and the personal health and fulfillment of employees (King, 2007). These relationships suggest the possibility of spiritual drivers for employment policies. In short, beliefs shape choices. These beliefs may stem from a variety of spiritual, religious, philosophical, or scientific ontological grounds. Because this is an issue of the inequitable distribution of career and social benefits and costs, it is an appropriate subject for ethical critique. If one does not like the outcomes of the policies that have been chosen, one must be able to challenge the grounds on which the choices of these policies were made, regardless of the source. Therefore, this article will utilize an ontological ideal-type model to analyze the potential relationship between workplace policies that affect men and women differently and the belief systems with which these policies may be associated. Only through such understanding can we consider the broader implications of promoting workplace spirituality.Employment policies stem from both external regulatory and internal organizational levels of analysis. To illustrate how spirituality is related to workplace policies, whether derived from government mandates or voluntarily offered, this article explores how belief systems may prefigure employment policies that affect women differently than men. For example, at Correspondence should be sent to

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Revisiting the (Lost) Art of Ideal-Typing in Public Administration

Cited by 19 publications

References 42 publications

The Virtues of Administration: Values and the Practice of Public Service

The Virtues of Administration: Values and the Practice of Public Service

Making Sense of Performance Regimes: Rebalancing External Accountability and Internal Learning

Reframing Workplace Spirituality to Reduce Career and Social Costs to Women

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